4 Speed Times: Hurst Shifter Rebuild How-to Video

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Do your choices for how you build your own ride need to make sense? To everyone?

I’m sure there’s more than a few people who’d say I’m nuts for putting a Dagenham 4-speed back into my 1963 Falcon Wagon project.  I hear you.  But, I’ve got my reasons.

The main reason is the fact my Falcon’s a rare (or maybe odd’s a better word) bird.  This long-roofed wonder’s an original, 6 cylinder, bench seat, floor shift, 4 speed car.  I’ve found one other goofy-six-by-four on Fordsix.com but just one! I like that! (have you got one?)

The other big reason (no, friends that know me, it’s not just cause I’m a cheap SOB) involves some great memories and even better, life-long friends.

The Dagenham four speed and shifter that I’m rebuilding here is from my dad’s friend Brad Bradly or “Harry” as his friends know him. This shifter’s from his 1963 “shop truck” Falcon Ranchero that he still owns.  That Ranchero’s been built, raced, totaled, re-built, raced, modified, raced again, totaled again… you get the idea! Now, this car’s running a tri-carbed Offenhauser setup on a 250 sixer.  It’s nicer than it’s ever been and still a cherished ride, even along side his black on black 1963 Falcon V8, bucket seat, 4 speed car. (Brad’s working on sending a picture to include in this story.)

So there won’t be a T5, 5-speed upgrade to my Falcon. Those T5’s would be better in alot of ways, but I just can’t do it.  Furthermore, the discolored and scratch shift-ball and pitted and worn Hurst stick will also be staying. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Hurst Competition Plus 4 speed shifter rebuild Video Part 1

Hurst Competition Plus 4 speed shifter rebuild Video Part 2

Helpful? Sucked? I’d like to hear either way.  I’m no expert here, but did want to pass on what I learned. Leave a comment with any good info you have too!

Hot Rod Ramblings: Ford Falcon is “Car of the Week”

After doing the Volk ‘29 Roadster story last week, I was way into traditional hot rods.  But, knowing that my daily driver/hot rod needs to be more practical, have a heater and a back seat, 1960’s rods make more sense.

My parents were up visiting from California and of course, poppi and I talked cars.  He had a 1964 Mercury Comet Cyclone for about 15 years or so.  I’ve thought many times I should do a tribute Comet, black just like dad’s, high revving 289 ci or 302 ci and a modern 5 speed.  The problem is, Comet’s are hard to find clean.  Plus, they’re a little bigger  than I typically like.  I’m a small car kind of guy.  The Ford Falcon is the Comet’s baby brotha from another motha.

I was doing my usual daily classifieds browsing on Craigslist and found this 1964 Ford Falcon Futura with a V8 and 4 speed trans, front disc brakes,  and a straight body already being used as a daily driver.

Typically what I do when I get hooked on a new “Car of the Week” is I go straight to Google Image searches.  My ultimate Falcon build would be a combination of Trans-Am, SCCA, Pro-Touring and Restomod build styles.  These were some of the inspirational cars I found on Google.  Enjoy!

This Falcon has a great road race feel going on.  I love those wheels and the flat cornering.

I really dig the 5 spoke grey Torque Thrust wheels on the left above.  Silver is a good color for the Falcon.

Pikesan found this one and sent me the link.  Thanks buddy!  I think this is the perfect setup for a Falcon road racer.  I really like the mini-fender flares.  The radiused rear fender is just what the small rear wheel well needs to fit these 16×10 wide PS Engineering wheels on a Falcon.  I think it looks great don’t you?  That 2 tone paint is a nice touch too.

Found this red one on RacingJunk.com. This is a perfect example to start building a track ready Falcon.  It looks clean with the painted front and rear bumpers.

I’ll finish up with this resto-mod Falcon running 17″ wheels.  The Falcon looks good in white I think.  The hardtop coupe Sprint model is a great cruiser.

So, I check Craigslist (Utah, Phoenix, LA, Vegas), RacingJunk.com, BringaTrailer.com.  What else do you guys use for finding your project cars?

Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Hechtspeed

You Can’t Fight the Man: Hybrid Custom Falcon

When it comes down to it, there’s one universal truth. You can’t fight the man. Oh go ahead and fight, my weary and simple minded friends, but you’re gonna lose. That’s why I’ve decided to stop fighting and get with America’s Program. Like most American’s, I don’t want a stylish car with features that make me feel good after a long day’s work… and I don’t need to tow my boat with a truck big enough to haul my family. No. I want a fuel efficient car and I don’t care what it looks like or what it costs.

That’s why nobody wants to get the American economy running on green jobs more than MyRideisMe.com. I’ve decide to do my part to contribute to the new 27.3 mpg standard for new cars by making a change to my hobby and reduce my carbon footprint.

If you didn’t know, I’m building a 1963 Falcon wagon. I’ve always loved wagons for their sleek design and roomy interiors. I can take all my 2 stroke lawn maintenance equipment (my blower, mower and wacker too) in for service all at the same time!
So moving forward on my project while considering the inherent efficiency of the Falcon, I had a hard time choosing, but finally chose green (and damnit, it feels good!). Here’s my new powertrain. It’ll be stretch to convert this rear wheel drive car to front wheel drive to accommodate the hybrid engine and motor, but it’ll be worth it! When I bow to the man, I bow low.

I take great pride in doing my part for the environment because I have no idea where electricity comes from and I think that old car batteries are as harmless as a chromed fuel filler doors. When I see those “naked lady” silhouette stickers on the back of a Dodge Minivan, that’s not odd, that’s diversity. Celebrate it!

To celebrate that joyous feeling I’ll have while spending the next 18 years driving my Falcon at 5 below the speed limit to recoop the cost of this engine, I’m starting the new, MyRideisMe.com “Hybrid of the Month”.

Come on all you hybrid fans! Send in those pics! Obama’s got “cash for your clunker” so you can turn in the aging classic that was your grampa’s first car to get a voucher for a personality-void rounded turd-on-wheels. God this is exciting!

How much do you love Hybrids? Don’t be shy! Next time those tree hugging Prius geeks pass you at 80 in a 55, just wave and say, “I’m with you brother” and give them the 1 fingered salute.

In case you haven’t figured it out… April Fools.

Kim Falcon – August Pinup of the Month

Hot rods and pinups are like peas and carrots, so I’m starting a new feature at MyRideisMe.com called Pinup of the month. I’m lucky to have the lovely Kim Falcon as our first for the month of August.

In Kim’s own words and from her website kimfalcon.com

“I Love music. Pin-up modeling, Photography, ROCK-N-ROLL!! Vegetarian food!!, Driving around town in the 64 Cadillac Hearse listening to the Misfits, My children! Love Rockabilly!!!! Love Tiger Army! Absolutely obsessed with roses!!!! I love to travel the world.”

What she doesn’t say (pure modesty, I guess) is that she’s super cool and all over the place in the world of pinup modeling. She was mentioned as #6 amoung modern pinups by a cool site I just found called Askmen.com. Here’s a link: Top Pinups; that list includes all my favorites like Zoe Scarlett, Heidi Van Horn and Dayna Delux.

Even cooler? She’s also the proud owner of this 1962 Ford Falcon. A Falcon girl too? Damn! Can she get any hotter? I guess I’m warped or, like I said before, have an extra W chromosome (I dig wagons…) Here’s a link to a blog about some Hot Falcons at MyRideisMe.com.

Do about this photo. It was shot for Moon Eyes 2005, their Christmas party (I’m guessing) by pinup photographer Mitzi Valenzuela with MUAH (makeup and hair for those of us who don’t do modelling!) by Angela Warrick.

So please enjoy this picture of Kim with this sit’n low custom. To me, this pic epitomizes pinups. She’s hot, the car is cool and you wonder if you messed with her if she’d drop that cig and kick your ass. Bring her home to mom, maybe not… but for dad, he’s slipping you an extra couple bucks for gas money.

Get more Kim Falcon at her myspace page or at her other project Funeral Classics Clothing.

Check out all the Pinups here MyRideisMe.com Pinups Models & Hot Rods

Falcon Build Update #3- The Roof

I think it was Earl Sheib who said, “Body work is glamorous!” He was lying! Ok, I made that up. Body work’s dirty and you have to use a bunch of tools that make noise. I like that part! But, it takes so much time. It’s hard work. This week, I enlisted another friend, Joe Nagy. He came over to hit the roof of the wagon, and that we did. (for a good laugh, check out the Earl Scheib home page and the endorsement from Danny Boneduce)

On the left, you can see where we started. For some reason, I really like wagons, but I guess that was before I wanted to paint one! The roofs, as they’re known, are LONG. I’m pretty lucky that the roof’s straight and basically trouble free except for more of that black primer filled with that strange oil the previous owner used to keep it sorta-shiny. (I already said, please don’t do that…)

Joe and I fired up the wire wheel and DA sander only to find that sucked. From there I decided to go back to the paint stripper to ease the pain some. Does anyone know of a stripper that actually works? I’m sure it doesn’t help that it’s 90+ in the garage, but still, as much as I put on, you’d think some more of this ratty primer would come off. Not so. Even the “Aircraft” quality stripper I had wasn’t that hard core. I want the paint to peel off in one big sheet! But, I also want my kids to have clean air and clean water. I bet in the old days, paint stripper got it done! Here’s what the paint stripper did. Any paint that does peel off is still paint I don’t have to force off.

After throwing almost every wire from my low-buck Harbor Freight wire wheel, this is what was left. The original color of the car was burgundy and a cool one at that. Once I hit color, bare metal or the grey/yellow primer, I moved on to the next spot. I wasn’t trying to get all bare metal, just get all that oil off there. Looking back, I think it would have been worth it to have the entire car blasted. I would have done that, but I didn’t want to find any major surprises. Small ones, ok, but from what I’ve seen on Overhauln’, some stones should be left unturned. Speaking of Overhaulin’, check out this “Overhaulin’ game“. You can customize a car. I think Chip probably threw up a little bit when he saw it.

After the wire wheel, I broke out the DA sander with 80 grit paper. It’s amazing how much better that works when it’s not trying to gum up with the old black paint. It didn’t take long at all, then I was ready for some primer. You can see in the picture above there was only 1 spot with any filler. The DA smoothed that out nicely so I can put a little more on.

3 cans of primer later, the roof finally looked like we had done something! The solid gray after looking at the spotted mess of paint, steel and primer was a great change. I used a long board for the first time to do the first bit of sanding. Or maybe I should say, I tried using it. Wanted: Dude who can teach me how to use one of those without undoing all work from the previous step. I did get some advice tonight, but I’ll have to wait to give it a try. You can see that one spot with filler. I learned how much hardener is too much tonight too. That stuff kicked so fast I threw half of it away. Time to wrap it up for the night/week.

Just to catch you up completely, I also got most of the passenger doors stripped and ready for the DA and primer treatment. Then, here’s a picture of where the rear door handles have been filled in. That area’s smoothing out nicely to get ready for Squeeg’s filling primer. I learned from Doug why his primer’s the best and I’ll blog it all soon.

Much more later, we’re just getting started. Stay tuned. Any comments on the progress?

Thanks to my current sponsors:

• Heat and sound insulation from Auto Insulation
• A great new steering wheel, a stock one from Cesar at Vintique Inc.
• Doug Jerger and Squeeg’s Kustoms for the Epoxy Primer Filler

More sponsor opportunities available!

Falcon Strip Party Update – What not to do…

In case you missed the last story, I’m rebuilding my 1963 Falcon Wagon. Originally, I just planned to put some paint on it and re-do the interior, but after inviting a bunch of friends over (here’s the story), my wagon’s now a stripped hulk sitting in my garage. Borderline panicking but not quitting, I’ve still got great friends helping out. We’re making progress. It’d be easier to get out to the garage if it wasn’t 112 today!

The first thing I should mention is the “How-to” I wrote in my garage. In addition to adding pics of your ride, you can also use your garage to help others by showing how you did something… like a tech page. I filled in the backup lights in the tailgate of my wagon and wrote a “How-to” about it. If you ever need to patch a small hole, it might be an interesting read. Click HERE to see it.

First off, I have to mention the tireless help I’ve been getting from my friend Ken Ford. (perfect name for the project, right?) Ken’s a body guy and was looking for a reason to get dirty on a project. He’s got a Harley at home now has built several VW’s in the past, including a few vans, so he knows how to get body panels looking good.

It’s a good thing too! We’ve been moving around the car looking for disasters. We really only found 1. The previous owner decided to fill the cowl vent. I guess it looks a little smoother, but I’d leave it. (too late now!) I wouldn’t mind putting it back either cause it might be easier when you see the mess he left. We knew there was a problem there because the bondo had cracked. When we got to work cleaning it out, this is what we found. It’s hard to see from this picture, but there was about 1/2 inch of bondo covering this patch panel. He didn’t finish-weld the patch, so I think some moisture got underneath it and cause the cracking. This is gonna require some minor surgery to repair. I think it might actually be easier to find a new cowl and put it in. What do you think?

While Ken’s been hitting the outside, I’m inside cleaning the floorpan. It looked pretty nasty at first, especially in the pics. Really, it’s not that bad. Everything all rusty colored, but there was only one small spot of cancer rust. I’ll write about how I handle that in another blog. Here’s the before, during and finished pics of the floorpan. I’m going to use POR-15 to seal the floor up, then insulate the hell out of it with the insulation from Auto Insulation. I removed about 20lbs of muck and filth from the car. Ever wonder where that “old car” smell comes from? I can tell you! I’ve also included a pic of the rear floor. I hit this thing HARD with a wire wheel and it still looks pretty nasty. I’ll cover it with carpet anyway, so it’ll get more POR-15.

So here’s the progress on the rest of the car. We had to strip off all of the old black primer. The previous owner used some kind of oil or something, (I thought it was Armor Al) to keep the primer looking somewhat shiny. Whatever you do, don’t do that. Ken was using up DA sanding paper like crazy with that crap loading up. The cars all spotty, but when Ken throws down some primer, it looks good. I hit the front fenders with some paint stripper and then with a wire wheel to get all the black off. It’ll look worse before it starts to look better.

I also included a shot of the first of many paint supplies I’ll need. The guys at ARS, Automotive Refinish Supply in Chandler hooked me up a little and are going to try and help get PPG to sponsor the build. Brandon at ARS didn’t mind waiting a bit since I came right from work, even on a Friday evening. Its nice to work with good people. Rather then buy this and that from a swap or an auto parts chain, I’m buying all quality supplies. With all the work we’re putting in, I want this to be nice.

Brandon also started helping with colors. That’s gonna be a tough choice. I know it’ll be blue cause that’s what my kids want. I know the car was originally Heritage Burgundy. It’s a cool color, but it ain’t blue. A friend said that Ford offered a light blue similar to what I’m looking for in 1963. Brandon said to look at www.AutoColorLibrary.com to find the color. Glacier Blue or Peacock Blue might be cool. Brian from Problem Child Kustoms Studio might have to make the final choice for me. I’ll trust his expertise.

That’s it for now! Thanks to my current sponsors:

• Heat and sound insulation from Auto Insulation
• A great new steering wheel, a stock one from Cesar at Vintique Inc.
• My current paint supplies and those to come: Automotive Refinish Supply
• Doug Jerger and Squeeg’s Kustoms for the Epoxy Primer Filler

Ford Falcon MANIA!

I’ve wanted to write a few blogs for a while. One of them is about the cool Falcons at MyRideisMe.com already. I take a personal interest since I’ve got one of them even though it might be for sale before too long. You know what they say about having too many projects… I know, you can never, but in this case, I might punt so I can do some work on my Rambler Wagon.

So, if you’re a fellow Falcon Fanatic, (Craig’s about to be clever) a Bird of Prey Beholder or Carnivorous Bird Custodian, dig these rides.

First is the 62 mor-dor from garvinzoom. This car is rolling proof that a 4 door can be cool and that high-def Coolosity you doesn’t have to break the bank. The original 170 inline six and two speed auto ride in the factory but lowered chassis with 13″ skinny whites on blacksteel rims. The body has primer with the trim holes filled, reverse lights shaved and fuel cap moved inside trunk. The interiors a self described “Crappy but clean”.

The next Falcon is the killer square bodied vert, one of many owned by my buddy Rob known as Mr. Freeze. Rob’s got some pics of the Falcon when he got it and is pretty much an expert on making cars right on the cheap by doing most work himself and finding quality places that don’t charge a fortune for the stuff he doesn’t want to do. Nuff said, look:

Then comes my favorite! The Falcon wagon… There’s something wrong with wagon dudes like me. I think there’s a W chromosome missing or something? If you’re like me, then you’ll dig the project falconizer_62 has going. Along with the killer Mustangs he’s done, the roof on this wagon had to be completely replaced due to rust. I love where he’s going with this, it’s like a template for my wagon. Check it out and read the BLOG in his garage.

Then, if one righteous Falcon ain’t enough, here’s Rob’s other… a 62 Wagon Deluxe V8 on bags… oh, and it’s a 2 door! Alots folks can’t do the 4 doors, but really, you gotta go with what’s available. The 2 doors are harder to find and obviously, that means more money. Still, this car sits just right and get’s my wagon wheels rolling.

Bringing up the rear for wagons is mine. It’s “blue Craig” cause that’s what my kids named it. I’ve got plans to paint it blue one of these days and that’s all it takes with my boys. This thing is very rough around the edges, but to me, holds high potential. If it weren’t for my other projects still needing love and attention (translate… MONEY) I’d keep her. Who knows, when I get the starter replaced, I’ll probably lose all common sense and hang on for the ride.

Not to slight my man Mike though, here’s one last Falcon… A Ranchero that’s as clean as they come. Mike and Rob have teamed up on several Falcon builds. He’s got a Comet wagon almost done. I hope he shares soon…

Ok, but tastes like Chicken? You tell me.

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